Product of Arthur Meyerhoff

The annual May reunion of our buds sported all the usual activities and some amazing new ones, the first of which was a spate of crabbing brought on by one mean sucker nipping Mikey on a toe. Since there were crabs to be netted, netted they were (at first with neighbors Karen & Phil's nets)--and then boiled up in sea water and picked to pieces at the kitchen table. YUM! Natch, we are now equipped with all the appropriate gear and man o man, do we have plans to use it! (Interestingly, other Sunrise Beach folks have never imagined these "relatives of blue crabs" fit for consumption and were very curious as to our methods of preparation and the outcome. Go figure.)

Recalitrant bugger . . .

We revived the bi-annual jigsaw puzzle routine, working our way back into it with an easy 750-piecer whomped up in record time. All hail Scott, our project manager! The usual roster of games was played: mah jongg, our no-limit poker tourney, limit poker, rummy-o!, with a little spite & malice (thank -you Kathryn!) on the side.

Speaking of Smackenz, not only did he win at jongg for the first time in many years, he also produced an incredibly winning paella. Other culinary highlights included Dr. Boo Boo's African wings, Mikey's gorgeous gazpacho, Joely's fabulous filets mignon (and hallucination-inducing maytag dressing), Sandy's piquant pozole, dukka with avacado oil ported all the way from New Zealand, Dude's darling angel food cake, and E's frozen confections, including a dark chocolate ice cream and pina colada popsicles. Libations were plentiful and seemed to involve the letter M: moscow mules, maragaritas and maitais--complete with umbrellas! Not to mention a jeraboam or two's worth of champagne. Before we were all assembled, 5 of us had Sunday Brunch at Fire, a nice little fine dining place in Grayton Beach: everybody liked his or her food, and everybody LOVED Scott's order of BBQ sammie, so this is a definite Do Again!

Dee took this pic of Scott's Triumph


JB gets credit for this shot of our main barkeep


Boys have their toys, and Mikey got his in the water with an assist from Dee & Scott and Squeaky. Poor old Sharkie had to help him haul it all the way back on her own!



Nothing came of all these clouds, at least not locally, but their roiling was mesmerizing. Tip o' the porkpie to JB for these pix:

The newest addition to B-A-R toys, Wii, provided hours of cheering, screeching, swearing and record-breaking acitivity. Our guests left with claims to all the top spots. You can see from these pix that the weather was, by and large, sunny & bright, but so heady are the Wii Fit challenges that hours would sometimes go by before folks remembered to go outside!

Joel at the camera again, above.

The week of crazy fun included making plans for VancouverCon 2010 and closed with not just the departure of our longtime friends, but of Karen & Phil, off for 4 months at Spider Lake in northern Michigan. Thus we are the recipient of their Miracle Whip and seasoning bacon AND a pair of hanging pots of geraniums--a version of the traveling mums come round again. We will miss them but are already having fun spying on their renters! In the past couple of days, E has eaten two of our home grown cherry tomatoes and we've enjoyed a short sweet visit from Vonceil.